Page 22 of The Identicals
“You aren’t privy to the secrets of my innermost heart,” Eleanor says.
“Aunt Harper is so cool,” Ainsley says. “But I’m not talking about how she dresses, obviously.”
Eleanor nods. “Her ensemble today was a travesty. I’m going to send her some inventory tomorrow.” She turns to Tabitha. “What size are you, dear?”
“I’m a size four, Mother,” Tabitha says. “You know I’m a size four.”
“I’m going to send Harper twos,” Eleanor says. “She looked a little thinner than you.”
“It’s just that she acts cool,” Ainsley says. “She’s chill. By which I mean the opposite of uptight.”
Tabitha can’t believe she’s hearing this. Eleanor has been pining for Harper ever since Harper left with Billy? That is revisionist history at its most interesting. Tabitha knows for a fact that Harper used to go visit Eleanor regularly in Boston, although she probably hasn’t been since the ghastly drug bust. But still, it’s hardly as though they’ve been kept from each other. The champagne is turning Eleanor into something fromLady Sings the Blues. And Ainsley thinks Harper ischill?Harper iscool?Did Ainsley miss the part of the reception when the wife of Harper’s lover—who also happened to be Billy’s doctor—slapped Tabitha across the face, mistakenly believing it was Harper? Is it cool to be called a tramp? It’s possible that Ainsley doesn’t realize the quagmire Harper got herself into three years ago, deliveringthree pounds of cocaineto a landscaping client. Harper should rightly have gone to prison. They should be going to visit her at Framingham instead of Martha’s Vineyard. Wouldthatbe chill? Ainsley may not realize that her aunt now delivers packages for a living. She didn’t get hired by UPS or FedEx because she had no decent references, so instead she works for a local operation called Rooster Express. Billy had shown Tabitha a picture of Harper on his phone: Harper was wearing a red collared shirt and a baseball cap emblazoned with an offensively grinning bird. The job is not chill. It is not cool. Harper’s life is a shit show. If Tabitha is the only person here who can see that, then fine.
Tabitha goes to stand by the window and gaze at the water, which is probably a mistake because the feelings of intense self-reflection return. Billy is dead. Everyone assumes that Harper is the only one who feels this loss, but Tabitha is grieving as well. He was her father, too. She wasn’t present for his illness; she wasn’t at his bedside the way Harper was, but still Tabitha aches. One more person who was related to Julian is dead. During his annual visits to Nantucket, Billy accompanied Tabitha to the cemetery to place flowers on Julian’s grave every August 15, the anniversary of the day Julian died. They would bow their heads, and Billy would say a simple prayer and squeeze Tabitha’s hand until she thought it would break. “He’s with my mother in heaven,” Billy would say. “She’s taking care of him. You can count on that.” Tabitha had never been particularly religious, but the ritual of going to the cemetery with Billy had comforted her as nothing else had.
Have you ever lost anyone?Tabitha has now lost her father.
And Harper, Tabitha admits to herself. Seeing her sister today was a trial. Years of anger and hatred had blanketed the truth, which lay underneath like a sediment, nearly disguised but not quite. Tabitha lost her best friend, her sister, her twin.
Did Tabitha remember the way Harper used to ride on her back when she was a pony? Of course. Tabitha remembers a lot more than that. She remembers their switching classes at Winsor—Tabitha would double up on art, Harper on English. She remembers them both candy-striping at the Brigham, intentionally confusing senile Mrs. Lawton—Tabitha would walk out one door at the same time Harper walked in another—and giving themselves side stitches from laughing so hard. She remembers summer camp at Wyonegonic and how the other girls thought Tabitha and Harper would hate each other, as the twins inThe Parent Trapdid, but they had been best friends, inseparable. They waited together in their bathing caps at the end of the dock before diving into freezing-cold Moose Pond in perfect tandem. They paddled together in the canoe, Tabitha in the stern, Harper in the bow. Tabitha would steer; Harper added power. They lined up side by side in archery, their bows poised exactly the same way.
She remembers rock, paper, scissors and Harper rolling away with Billy, leaving Tabitha behind to suffer through a future of living up to Eleanor’s impossibly high standards. Tabitha had waved good-bye, standing on the brick sidewalk in front of the house on Pinckney Street, but Harper hadn’t bothered waving back; she had been too busy fiddling with the radio.
Tabitha remembers Harper showing up on Nantucket to help Tabitha take care of Julian.
Tabitha stops herself there.
When they get home, there’s a brown box sitting on the front porch of the carriage house. It’s Ainsley’s new phone, which cost Tabitha seven hundred dollars, making it more punishing to Tabitha than to Ainsley.
“My phone!” Ainsley shrieks, and she jumps out of the FJ40—whichstillsmells like cigarettes—while it’s moving.
Tabitha slams on the brakes. She tries to remind Ainsley that she is grounded from her phone until Friday. But there will be no taking it away from her now. Or, rather, Tabitha can take it away, but it will no doubt involve a physical fight in which Tabitha may well get struck for the second time. She isn’t up for it.
You’re right, Ramsay,she thinks.I’m a piss-poor parent. I crumble like a day-old cookie every time.
She watches Ainsley disappear into the carriage house with the box. Tabitha continues down the long white-shell driveway to her mother’s house, Seamless—a 4,500-square-foot edifice with three floors, six bedrooms, six and a half baths, and a glassed-in porch that perches on the edge of a cliff, offering uninterrupted views of Nantucket Sound. Tabitha has always assumed that someday this house will be hers—as well as the town house on Pinckney Street—although lately Eleanor has been dodgy about money. The ERF boutique on Newbury Street folded the year before, and Eleanor must have sustained a hit to her finances and her ego, although she was predictably stoic about both. Tabitha has always assumed that Eleanor is sitting on a comfortable cushion of cash, but obviously it wasn’t enough to save the flagship store. The Nantucket store will be the next to sink—short of a miracle—despite Tabitha’s efforts to diversify the inventory. The Palm Beach store is just fine because… well, because the clientele in Palm Beach is old. Older.
“Do you need help getting inside, Mother?” Tabitha asks.
Eleanor inhales dramatically. “You have no idea how today taxed me.”
“It taxed all of us,” Tabitha says.I got slapped!she thinks.And doused!Her dress looks pretty good considering—another selling point for the Roxie. It can absorb a full glass of champagne without showing a stain or a wrinkle. “He was my father.”
“He was my husband,” Eleanor says.
“Ex-husband,” Tabitha says. “You were divorced from Billy longer than you were ever married to him.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Eleanor says.
“Idon’tunderstand,” Tabitha says. “I find this sudden mourning and thisheartbreaka little manufactured and more than a little self-serving. Billy lived eleven miles away. Did you ever go to see him? When he was here, on Nantucket, did you ever offer to take him to lunch? Or to invite him inside this house? No! When his name came up, you insulted him. You outgrew Billy long ago. You divorced him, then you forgot about him, Mother. I can’t believe you’re now telling my daughter that you loved him with all your heart.”
“You’ve never been married, Pony,” Eleanor says. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a newspaper clipping. She hands it to Tabitha
“What’s this?” Tabitha says. She unfolds the clipping; it’s well worn, softened, and smudged. It’s a photograph of Billy and Eleanor, Eleanor smiling as though she’s won fifty million dollars in the lottery, Billy kissing her cheek. The caption reads:Boston Royalty—Fashion designer Eleanor Roxie-Frost and husband, Billy Frost, enjoy an evening out at Locke-Ober to raise funds for the Boston Public Library. Ms. Roxie-Frost wears a gown of her own design.
Tabitha has seen dozens of such photographs of Billy and Eleanor together, and she always thinks the same thing.Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…but end they did. Still, this photograph prompts Tabitha to acknowledge her mother’s sorrow. Eleanor thought to bring this clipping to Billy’s memorial reception; it means something to her. Even after all the years of contempt and disregard, she might still have loved him.
Tabitha can’t deal with the emotion right now; she is too exhausted. So instead she says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that dress.” It’s a long strapless column of dark silk with a pleated top reminiscent of a Japanese fan.
